User:Harlsbottom/Fall of Baghdad (1917)
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| Fall of Baghdad | |||||||
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| Part of Mesopotamian Campaign (World War I) |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 I Corps (India)III Corps (India) |
 Sixth Army of the Ottoman Empire |
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| Commanders | |||||||
| Sir Frederick Stanley Maude | Khalil Pasha | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 50,000 men | 25,000 men | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Unknown, but small | More than 9,000 were taken prisoner | ||||||
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Contents |
[edit] Background
After the surrender of the Kut garrison on April 29, 1916, the British Army in Mesopotamia underwent a major overhaul. The General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Lieutenant-General Sir Percy Lake was recalled to testify in front of the Mesopotamian Commission of Inquiry, and was replaced in August, 1916 by Major-General Sir Frederick Stanley Maude, the most junior divisional general in the command.
General Maude spent the rest of 1916 re-building his army. Most of his troops were recruited in India and then sent by sea to Basra. While these troops were being trained, British military engineers built a field railway from the coast up to Basra and beyond. General Maude also obtained a small force of armed river boats and river supply ships.
The British launched their new campaign on December 13, 1916. The British had some 50,000 well trained and well equipped troops; the Indian III Corps also called the Tigris Corps. The Ottoman forces were smaller, perhaps around 25,000 strong under the overall command of Khalil Pasha.
[edit] The advance on Baghdad
[edit] Landward
The army continued its advance towards Baghdad, while the Navy kept pace with its gunboats (the distance following the Tigris was double that of the road). On 5 March the 13th Hussars mounted a cavalry charge upon a Turkish convoy at the village of Lajj, twenty-seven miles from Baghdad. The Turks put up a spirited fight with artillery, machine gun and rifle fire and the cavalry was forced to dismount. The Turks made a stand, reinforcing their line during the day before withdrawing during the night. At that point thirty-eight field guns had been captured during the advance from Kut[1] and 4,300 Turks taken prisoner. The Turks then fell back on Diyala, blowing the sole bridge over the Diyala River at its junction with the Tigris upon the orders of Khalil Pasha. While in pursuit on the 6th, the British passed through Ctesiphon, abandoned by the Turks and the site of the furthest advance of British arms in the 1915 campaign.
At Diyala the the Turks had dug in on the banks of the River Diyala. Attempting to maintain the speed of the advance (the line of the river being only eight miles from the outskirts of Baghdad), an assault across the river where the bridge had been located was ordered on the night of the 7th March. The 6th King's Own battalion of the 38th Lancashire Brigade tried to get four pontoons across the river during a moon-lit night, and failed under a withering fire from the Turks. The following night, the Loyal North Lancashires tried again, this time with a preliminary bombardment which raised a thick pall of dust. When the dust cleared however, casualties were heavy and only sixty men crossed the river, without any pontoons. They held out the next day (the 9th) and the following night despite fierce Turkish counter-attacks. They were finally relieved on the morning of the 10th, when the Turks had started to fall back upon realising their flanks were being turned by the 7th Division and the 35th Brigade.
[edit] River action
After the Second Battle of Kut and the fall of that city, the Royal Navy sent three gunboats up the Tigris, Tarantula, Mantis and Moth. During the course of their adavance they recaptured the gunboat Firefly which had been lost in Townshend's surrender in 1915 and renamed Firicloss. Three Turkish steamers were captured, one destroyed and thirty pontoons and ten barges captured. West of Shumran the retreating Turks were subjected to heavy gunfire from the river craft on February 26.[2] Two K-boats, shallow-draught lighters which had been built for the Gallipoli campaign were widely used to ferry troops across the Tigris, each being able to carry two hundred and fifty troops at a time. During one such operation they grounded in the mud of the Tigris, and had to be towed off by the Tarantula.
[edit] Entry into Baghdad
After midnight the night sky was lit up by fire, suggesting that the Turks were making preparations for withdrawal. At 1am in the morning of the 11th an officer of the 2/4th Gurkha Rifles took out a patrol then reported that in a position known as the "Iron Bridge" creek the Turks had withdrawn their guns. At 2am the 21st Brigade passed through the lines of the 19th Brigade and advanced into the city. A half company of the Black Watch captured the terminus of the Berlin-Baghdad Railway at 5:45am. The 35th Brigade moved forward to secure the suburb next to Baghdad's only bridge (found to be destroyed), and the corps cavalry occupied Khadimya at midday. Only a small Turkish rearguard had been left behind and the final train had left at 2am, well before the capture of the Baghdad railway station.
On the left bank of the Tigris the 38th, 39th and 40th Infantry Brigades began to advance during the night of the 10th on a five mile front. The Turks on this side of the river pulled out and two squadrons of cavalry entered the eastern part of the city in the early morning. The 40th Brigade marched round to the east of the city to flank any remaining Turks, followed by the 38th and 39th Brigades. Only the 35th Infantry Brigade and the 6th Battalion King's Own were permitted to enter the eastern city, while three battalions of the 35th were promptly transferred to the right bank of the Tigris by boat in mid-morning. At 10am the capture of the city was symbolically completed when men of the 1/5th Hampshire Regiment raised the Union Flag atop the Citadel.
[edit] World reaction
After the city was occupied, and the capture announced, world leaders responded by conveying their congratulations to King George V.
From President Raymond Poincaré of France;
| “ | I beg your Majesty to accept my congratulations again on the magnificent success of the British troops in Asia and on their victorious entry into the city of Baghdad[3] | ” |
From the King of Italy;
| “ | The news of the capture of Baghdad by the operations of the valiant British troops was received with joy and acclamation by the Army and Navy of Italy.
On behalf of the whole nation I express to your Majesty the most hearty and cordial congratulations on this fortunate event, of which we appreciate all the political and military importance, and which augurs so happily for our complete and final victory against the common enemy.[3] |
” |
General Sir William Robertson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, received a message from Sir David Beatty, Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet;
| “ | Please accept and convey to General Maude and his gallant forces the admiration and congratulations of the Grand Fleet upon their magnificent achievement in capturing Baghdad.[4] | ” |
The Turks did not officially release the news of the Fall of Baghdad at first, but eventually they conceded that the city had been captured. In Vienna, Enver Pasha spoke with a deputation of Bosnian Muslims who had come to express their loyalty to the new Emperor of Austria, Charles I. He told them;
| “ | The Baghdad affair, in truth, is not at all pleasant, but that town has not the importance that our enemies attribute to it.[5] | ” |
[edit] Baghdad proclamation
| “ | To the People of Baghdad Vilayet:
In the name of my King, and in the name of the peoples over whom he rules, I address you as follow:- Our military operations have as their object the defeat of the enemy, and the driving of him from these territories. In order to complete this task, I am charged with absolute and supreme control of all regions in which British troops operate; but our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators. Since the days of Halaka your city and your lands have been subject to the tyranny of strangers, your palaces have fallen into ruins, your gardens have sunk in desolation, and your forefathers and yourselves have groaned in bondage. Your sons have been carried off to wars not of your seeking, your wealth has been stripped from you by unjust men and squandered in distant places. Since the days of Midhat, the Turks have talked of reforms, yet do not the ruins and wastes of today testify the vanity of those promises? It is the wish not only of my King and his peoples, but it is also the wish of the great nations with whom he is in alliance, that you should prosper even as in the past, when your lands were fertile, when your ancestors gave to the world literature, science, and art, and when Baghdad city was one of the wonders of the world. Between your people and the dominions of my King there has been a close bond of interest. For 200 years have the merchants of Baghdad and Great Britain traded together in mutual profit and friendship. On the other hand, the Germans and the Turks, who have despoiled you and yours, have for 20 years made Baghdad a centre of power from which to assail the power of the British and the Allies of the British in Persia and Arabia. Therefore the British Government cannot remain indifferent as to what takes place in your country now or in the future, for in duty to the interests of the British people and their Allies, the British Government cannot risk that being done in Baghdad again which has been done by the Turks and Germans during the war. But you people of Baghdad, whose commercial prosperity and whose safety from oppression and invasion must ever be a matter of the closest concern to the British Government, are not to understand that it is the wish of the British Government to impose upon you alien institutions. It is the hope of the British Government that the aspirations of your philosophers and writers shall be realised and that once again the people of Baghdad shall flourish, enjoying their wealth and substance under institutions which are in consonance with their sacred laws and their racial ideals. In Hedjaz the Arabs have expelled the Turks and Germans who oppressed them and proclaimed the Sherif Hussein as their King, and his Lordship rules in independence and freedom, and is the ally of the nations who are fighting against the power of Turkey and Germany; so indeed are the noble Arabs, the Lords of Koweyt, Nejd, and Asir. Many noble Arabs have perished in the cause of Arab freedom, at the hands of those alien rulers, the Turks, who oppressed them. It is the determination of the Government of Great Britain and the great Powers allied to Great Britain that these noble Arabs shall not have suffered in vain. It is the hope and desire of the British people and the nations in alliance with them that the Arab race may rise once more to greatness and renown among the peoples of the earth, and that it shall bind itself together to this end in unity and concord. O people of Baghdad remember that for 26 generations you have suffered under strange tyrants who have ever endeavoured to set on Arab house against another in order that they might profit by your dissensions. This policy is abhorrent to Great Britain and her Allies, for there can be neither peace nor prosperity where there is enmity and misgovernment. Therefore I am commanded to invite you, through your nobles and elders and representatives, to participate in the management of your civil affairs in collaboration with the political representatives of Great Britain who accompany the British Army, so that you may be united with your kinsmen in North, East, South, and West in realising the aspirations of your race. |
” |
[edit] Citations
- ^ "The Road to Baghdad" (News). The Times. Thursday, 8 March. Issue 41421, col A, pg. 6.
- ^ "Gunboats' Dash up the Tigris" (News). The Times. Monday, 5 March. Issue 41418, col B, pg. 8.
- ^ a b "Describing the Tigris Advance" (News). The Times. Thursday, 15 March, 1917. Issue 41427, col E, pg. 7.
- ^ "Late War News" (News). The Times. Tuesday, 13 March, 1917. Issue 41425, col C, pg. 6.
- ^ "Further British Advance on the Tigris" (News). The Times. Wednesday, 18 April, 1917. Issue 41455, col E, pg. 8.
[edit] Reference list
Candler, Edward (1919). The Long Road to Baghdad, Volume II. London: Cassell and Company, Ltd.
